PERU | During the ice storm of 1998, David Comfort was on the front lines with the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation, trying to restore power to his community.

During that first week, he slept in his office. Comfort was committed.

But while working out in the cold, he developed pneumonia.

Not long after, he had a cardiac anomaly, and his doctors said that the pneumonia had damaged his heart valves.

Comfort said that for a long time, he was okay. He lived a normal life.

It wasn’t until 2011 that he became really sick, so much so that he had to have his heart valves repaired.

“That worked quite well,” said Comfort. “But there was a lot of damage.”

He entered a gene therapy medical trial, and recently learned that he’d gotten the real product.

In 2015, his condition got far worse.

He was admitted to the hospital that October.

“Over the next 81 days I lost 15 pounds,” he said. “I weighed 117 pounds.”

He didn’t know if he was going to make it. If a heart would become available in time.

His medical team didn’t, either.

“My nurses said they weren’t sure they’d see me the next morning,” Comfort said.

In the Eleventh Hour, he got the call.

They had a heart.

It was Jan. 7, 2016.

“At 7 a.m.,” he recalled.

The recovery process was lengthy. It took three months of rehab until he was functional again.

But there’s nothing special about this story, he said.

“It’s not us that are special. It’s our doctors. Our nurses, and people like Jennifer,” said Comfort, nodding his head toward Jennifer DeMaroney, a coordinator for the Center for Organ Donation & Transplant. “They’re wonderful people that give so much. They do the special thing. The thing that keeps us alive.”

Clad in a flannel shirt and black baseball cap, the Peru resident, now 67, stood tall last Tuesday as he presided over a booth at CVPH dedicated to promoting organ donation.

In the halls of the hospital, he grinned wide as he spoke with employees that stopped to give him a handshake.

DONATE LIFE

April is National Donate Life Month.

Since his heart transplant, Comfort tries to help spread the word in any way he can.

His passion is fueled in part by his donor’s family.

“My donor didn’t know the need,” he said, noting that his donor hadn’t been registered.

“After three days (of the donor being unconscious), his family had to make the decision... his father.

“In my case, that decision made all the difference,” Comfort said.

He got a call from his donor’s dad one year after the transplant.

“He wanted to know who I was. That I was a good person,” Comfort said. He paused. “It’s hard for me to talk about.”

There are 363 people in New York waiting for a heart transplant, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration.

Over 50 of those have been on the waiting list between three to five years, 40 for over five years.

According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), there are over 115,000 people waiting for a life-saving transplant. That includes 10,000 New Yorkers.

Over five million people in this state have registered to donate organs, according to the New York State Donate Life Registry.

In this state, anyone 16 years or older can register online to become an organ donor.

Learn more by visiting donatelife.ny.gov, or by calling 1-866-NY-DONOR.